[Photo by Geoff Ellis]
Family and friends gathered at Bath’s Haycombe Cemetery yesterday to say goodbye to Rob Coles, who died recently at the RUH after a short illness.
Rob was a regular contributor to bathnewseum.com and his photos of steam-driven rail ‘specials’ passing through the city were legendary.
He also kept an eye on happenings in general in Bath, and l have been so grateful for his contributions.
Life-long friend and press photographer and author, Geoff Ellis was amongst the many mourners who attended and my thanks to him for these family-approved photos.
The hearse was led down to the crematorium by a group of musician friends – led by trumpeter Brian Cox, now 93, who used to lead the Riverside Band in Bath in the late ’50’s.
Rob Coles played a sousaphone and tuba, and was a keen follower of New Orleans jazz.
It was good for me to personally shake hands with Rob’s son Gerard and offer my condolences. On my way there, l noticed a Pullman ‘special’ train passing through the city. It couldn’t have come on a better day to provide an unofficial tribute!
I would like to repeat Geoff’s eulogy – already printed elsewhere on this blog – for his old friend.
“Rob had been my lifelong friend since 1957 when I arrived in Bath to work on the Chronicle. It was him that introduced me to the local jazz scene and could be found every Saturday at The Angel in Westgate Street behind his magnificent sousaphone.
He also introduced me to Jean Coles, who has been my wife for more than 62 years, so a debt of gratitude.
He was like my shadow in Bath, his love of photography never left him- he held a wonderful archive of Bath, from railways to architecture, from social to opera.
After I left Bath and worked at The Guardian and The Times, he was a regular source of pictures- getting a big kick out of popping an unprocessed film into a Red Star envelope, nipping out of the Admiralty to rush it to Bath Spa to be collected by our messenger at Paddington.
He accompanied me down a coalmine at Writhlington where we lunched with Lord Robens, and lunched with the First Sea Lord too- much to the disbelief of his office colleagues.
He helped me with information and pictures when I produced a special report at The Times to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the GWR in 1985.
He was known in Bath for his kindness to visitors, often engaging tourists in conversation and walking them to points of interest and sorting out admission and paperwork for them.
He got a new lease of life by contributing news and pictures to your excellent Bath Newseum site – he just loved the involvement of news and photography.“
“He will be sadly missed by all his many friends, in the circles in which he was active, but personally, he was a constant friend for 67 years and I will miss him being at the end of the phone with a bit of Bath gossip.“
